Welcome to the Treehouse Community

Want to collaborate on code errors? Have bugs you need feedback on? Looking for an extra set of eyes on your latest project? Get support with fellow developers, designers, and programmers of all backgrounds and skill levels here with the Treehouse Community! While you're at it, check out some resources Treehouse students have shared here.

Looking to learn something new?

Treehouse offers a seven day free trial for new students. Get access to thousands of hours of content and join thousands of Treehouse students and alumni in the community today.

Start your free trial

Java Java Objects Creating the MVP Counting Scrabble Tiles

Charlie Flowers
Charlie Flowers
612 Points

I'm stumped with this... can anyone help? Thanks!

I've been able to get this far in the course, but can't get past this step. Can anyone please offer some help.... thanks!

ScrabblePlayer.java
public class ScrabblePlayer {
  // A String representing all of the tiles that this player has
  private String tiles;

  public ScrabblePlayer() {
    tiles = "";
  }

  public String getTiles() {
    return tiles;
  }

  public void addTile(char tile) {
    tiles += tile;
  }

  public boolean hasTile(char tile) {
    return tiles.indexOf(tile) != -1;
  }
}
Example.java
// This code is here for example purposes only
public class Example {

  public static void main(String[] args) {
    ScrabblePlayer player1 = new ScrabblePlayer();
    player1.addTile('d');
    player1.addTile('d');
    player1.addTile('p');
    player1.addTile('e');
    player1.addTile('l');
    player1.addTile('u');

    ScrabblePlayer player2 = new ScrabblePlayer();
    player2.addTile('z');
    player2.addTile('z');
    player2.addTile('y');
    player2.addTile('f');
    player2.addTile('u');
    player2.addTile('z');

    int count = 0;
    // This would set count to 1 because player1 has 1 'p' tile in her collection of tiles
    count = player1.getCountOfLetter('p');
    // This would set count to 2 because player1 has 2 'd'' tiles in her collection of tiles
    count = player1.getCountOfLetter('d');
    // This would set 0, because there isn't an 'a' tile in player1's tiles
    count = player1.getCountOfLetter('a');

    // This will return 3 because player2 has 3 'z' tiles in his collection of tiles
    count = player2.getCountOfLetter('z');
    // This will return 1 because player2 has 1 'f' tiles in his collection of tiles
    count = player2.getCountOfLetter('f');
  }
}

1 Answer

Gabe Olesen
Gabe Olesen
1,606 Points

Hey Charlie,

You'll need the following to complete this challenge:

public int getCountOfLetter(char letter) { 
    int count = 0; 
    for(char tile : tiles.toCharArray()) {
      if (tile == letter) {
        count ++; 
      } 
    }

    return count;
  }

So, the challenge 2/2:

You'll need to use your skills to loop through each of the tiles, use an equality check, and then increment a counter if the tile and letter match. You got this!

You want to use a For Each loop, we use;

for(char tile : tiles.toCharArray()) {
}

The above line means, for every tile (user passes in) in tiles. We use the toCharArray() method, this basically splits up the String into a character array (chars) allowing the loop to check each tile in tiles.

Then we implement an if statement (equality check) to see if the tile is equal to the letter, if it is the counter will increment, if it's not it will just return the current count.

 if (tile == letter) {
        count ++; 
      } 

Once we do that we return the count.

Hope this makes sense!

More on For Each loops

Charlie Flowers
Charlie Flowers
612 Points

Thanks so much that really helps.